The Lazy Kings

The Lazy Kings (Les Rois Faignants) is an extravagant street parade performed by the French theatrical entertainers known as Transe Express. It is based on a French fairytale, with characters such as the Witch on Wheels with her coven of Bicycle Witches, Suzerain of the Alps - searching desperately for his true love atop the Royal haystack, Mortibus Orgiac - a monarch who travels in a luxuriant hearse followed by giant skeletons and wailing burlesque mourners, Prince Hiero Nemo whose clam shell chariot is followed by a truck bearing a swishing mechanical fish in a large tank of water, Stabilof Padock - the gypsy voyager with his numerous offsprings on a rolling bed, etc.

The event has three simultaneous parades starting from different parts of Olympic Park, winding through the avenues, and converging at The Overflow. At first, I followed Padock, then Suzerain, then jumped to the other parades to maximize my photo output. I was pretty close to where the action was, but had to back out from time to time because the flares where spewing out so much ash, and I don't want to damage my camera (and my eyes). Come 9:15pm, I had to get away to join a conference call. I must've walked half a kilometer before the noise level is acceptable. The supposedly hour-long telecon dragged for another half-hour. (Great battery, that 6230.) By the I got back to The Overflow, the culminating finale involving the lazy kings atop a 20-meter-high rig is over.